What makes you excited? What makes you feel accomplished? What makes you like you've really learned something?
When you watch a drama and one of the characters is on an antidepressant, and the husband wants to drink wine together to cheer his wife up, but you know that there is an adverse reaction with alcohol and antidepressants, so you talk to the computer screen and say, "NO!! That will exacerbate her condition!" And later on in the episode, the wife is in the hospital for attempting suicide by slitting her wrist and the doctor tells the husband that wine will make her mental state more depressed. It's nothing to smile about, but I felt excited for knowing this little detail. Alcohol is one of the substances that can have an adverse reaction with many drugs.
One would think that dramas or tv shows are full of lies and make-believe, but when there is some sort of scientific basis that goes into the story (for example, in Juui Dolittle, a J-dorama about a veterinarian), it's amazing how much you actually know and can see pop up in entertainment. This is what I love about learning. This is what makes me feel my education is worth it.
It's exciting to be able to apply knowledge to life. But I have to keep in mind that these can be serious cases, and that is not exciting.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
XCII : Food Fondness
Food is so lovely. Food cures the mind, the heart, the soul. Of course, it can also the complete opposite, but I'd rather love the good things about food. Like how you can present delicious food in the shape of a dragon because it's called a dragon roll!
I forget what the restaurant is called, but it's the sushi restaurant in Little Tokyo's plaza place. I went with my mom before we drove back home for winter vacation. I remember last time I went to this place with my badminton team, my friend got the caterpillar roll and it was like a caterpillar! Such creativity.
Yesterday, I went to Half&Half to get boba with a friend. While I was waiting for her, I saw these in the display:
mmm~ delicious. I'm hungry. Why is food so amazing. It's just fats, proteins, carbs, and essential minerals for the body, but it can be so miraculous!
I forget what the restaurant is called, but it's the sushi restaurant in Little Tokyo's plaza place. I went with my mom before we drove back home for winter vacation. I remember last time I went to this place with my badminton team, my friend got the caterpillar roll and it was like a caterpillar! Such creativity.
Yesterday, I went to Half&Half to get boba with a friend. While I was waiting for her, I saw these in the display:
mmm~ delicious. I'm hungry. Why is food so amazing. It's just fats, proteins, carbs, and essential minerals for the body, but it can be so miraculous!
Monday, January 17, 2011
XCI : Consider This
Meeting more people means developing more precious friendships and finding those who have such drastically different personalities than you that are admirable or, sometimes, irritating. It makes the days filled with fun and excitement. But meeting more people also means facing things that I hadn't imagined would happen to me at this age, things that I thought I would face later in life so I never focused my thoughts on the possibility.
People have incurable diseases, whether they're elderly or they're young. I know people my age who have to live their life this way, but I just know them. I don't really have a personal connection with them. For some reason, I never imagined myself being directly connected to one who would be affected. I never thought I would face it now, but I guess it's inevitable. Some day, which keeps getting closer and closer, I'll have to deal with it almost on a daily basis; and at that time, I hope I can see them as more than just distant patients, talk to them as more than just strangers with a bit of trust. I hope I can see them as I see those I've grown up with who I now realize are and have been going through so much.
Cancer is closer than I thought. My aunt had it, and luckily, she was able to be cured of it early on. But now I learn that one of the moms I had grown up with has it, and it has spread. I watch dramas about families who have to deal with incurable diseases, and I understand the feeling of not knowing what to do as a family member or friend. But no matter how much just watching flawless acting makes me cry, actually living it makes me cry even more inside rather than outside... because no matter how logical I can be and how much science there is to help "make things better," what can I do for them?
Maybe a year ago, I learned that a college friend lost her close friend to cystic fibrosis. I've learned about that disease for who knows how many years, yet I never imagined how close it can be. Knowing that a friend has to go through this, what can you do for that friend who has to watch as her friend dies slowly? This reminds me of back when a family friend's father passed away suddenly. At that time, I was still in Jr. High, and so inexperienced, so unknowledgeable (this should be a word!). I felt sadness, and I cried, but life continued on, and I never thought about how long mourning should last. Should? Or must? Or could? I never comforted my family friend during that time, and we grew very distant. It's unbelievable since we were so close growing up.
I read about student deaths, and my heart goes out to the living who know them, but I never felt someone closer to me could possibly be one of those. I sometimes tend to exaggerate the negatives (take that from my mom maybe?), but it's still something I have to consider, right? A friend, my age, in the hospital. She's such a positive thinker, even though she is bleeding abnormally much, and for an abnormally number of days. Her comment, "I'm turning into a vampire!" because she has to get so many blood transfusions to replenish the lost amount. What can we do as friends? Is visiting and talking enough? Will she be okay again? How dangerous is her situation? Have the doctor's considered every possibility? Are they certain her case is just "hormonal imbalance" and can be treated without any future recurrences?
I understand there's no 100% certainty in anything in the health field. It's impossible for the doctors to say they're 100% positive she'll be able to go home tomorrow, she'll recover in a week, she'll recover completely, etc. I don't know what I'm expecting (besides going back to the life before this ever happened), but I keep thinking about all these cases affecting people close to me-- a family member, a friend's friend, my friend.
What should I be feeling at this time? What should I be thinking of?
I wish I were as much as a positive thinker as my friend.
People have incurable diseases, whether they're elderly or they're young. I know people my age who have to live their life this way, but I just know them. I don't really have a personal connection with them. For some reason, I never imagined myself being directly connected to one who would be affected. I never thought I would face it now, but I guess it's inevitable. Some day, which keeps getting closer and closer, I'll have to deal with it almost on a daily basis; and at that time, I hope I can see them as more than just distant patients, talk to them as more than just strangers with a bit of trust. I hope I can see them as I see those I've grown up with who I now realize are and have been going through so much.
Cancer is closer than I thought. My aunt had it, and luckily, she was able to be cured of it early on. But now I learn that one of the moms I had grown up with has it, and it has spread. I watch dramas about families who have to deal with incurable diseases, and I understand the feeling of not knowing what to do as a family member or friend. But no matter how much just watching flawless acting makes me cry, actually living it makes me cry even more inside rather than outside... because no matter how logical I can be and how much science there is to help "make things better," what can I do for them?
Maybe a year ago, I learned that a college friend lost her close friend to cystic fibrosis. I've learned about that disease for who knows how many years, yet I never imagined how close it can be. Knowing that a friend has to go through this, what can you do for that friend who has to watch as her friend dies slowly? This reminds me of back when a family friend's father passed away suddenly. At that time, I was still in Jr. High, and so inexperienced, so unknowledgeable (this should be a word!). I felt sadness, and I cried, but life continued on, and I never thought about how long mourning should last. Should? Or must? Or could? I never comforted my family friend during that time, and we grew very distant. It's unbelievable since we were so close growing up.
I read about student deaths, and my heart goes out to the living who know them, but I never felt someone closer to me could possibly be one of those. I sometimes tend to exaggerate the negatives (take that from my mom maybe?), but it's still something I have to consider, right? A friend, my age, in the hospital. She's such a positive thinker, even though she is bleeding abnormally much, and for an abnormally number of days. Her comment, "I'm turning into a vampire!" because she has to get so many blood transfusions to replenish the lost amount. What can we do as friends? Is visiting and talking enough? Will she be okay again? How dangerous is her situation? Have the doctor's considered every possibility? Are they certain her case is just "hormonal imbalance" and can be treated without any future recurrences?
I understand there's no 100% certainty in anything in the health field. It's impossible for the doctors to say they're 100% positive she'll be able to go home tomorrow, she'll recover in a week, she'll recover completely, etc. I don't know what I'm expecting (besides going back to the life before this ever happened), but I keep thinking about all these cases affecting people close to me-- a family member, a friend's friend, my friend.
What should I be feeling at this time? What should I be thinking of?
I wish I were as much as a positive thinker as my friend.
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